Citizenship Is Not A Prize In A Box Of Cracker Jack!

Afsun Qureshi: Citizenship is a privilege
Posted: April 16, 2009, 9:00 AM by NP Editor Filed under: Full Comment
For Canadians at home, tomorrow is probably just another day. But for Canadians living overseas, like me, it’ll be a special day.
April 17 marks the implementation of a new rule created by the Canadian government. If you are a Canadian living overseas, passing on your citizenship will now become more difficult: Your children won’t get a Canadian passport unless one of their parents was either born in Canada, or had become a citizen by immigrating into Canada.
Many Canadians are up in arms about this, ex-pats in particular. But I didn’t even know about the rule changes until a friend in Toronto forwarded me a mass-circulated protest e-mail. The message vilifies the policy, suggesting that all children of Canadian have a “right” to Canadian citizenship — no matter where they are born — and is accompanied by the obligatory petition to sign and forward.
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Rudyard Griffiths: A long-needed change to citizenship laws
Posted: April 16, 2009, 8:30 AM by NP Editor
Tomorrow, April 17, an important change to our citizenship laws comes into effect, one that will strengthen what it means to be Canadian in new and positive ways.
From this point forward, any person born abroad to Canadian parents will be a Canadian only if their father or mother was born in Canada, or if one or more of their parents became a citizen by immigrating to this country.
At long last, the absurd practice of allowing hundreds of thousands of citizens who have no real connection to Canada pass on the remarkable benefits of Canadian citizenship to their descendants, in perpetuity, has come to an end.
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Podcast: Making it tougher to become Canadian
Posted: April 15, 2009, 7:55 PM by Daniel Goldbloom Filed under: Podcast

15/04/09: Jason Kenney, Canada's Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism, is making it tougher to become a Canadian citizen. Is he doing the right thing? Managing Comment Editor Jonathan Kay and columnist and editorial board member Lorne Gunter discuss the changing face of Canadian citizenship.

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